Player Diary: Kansas visit on tap for Parker

Tony Parker, a senior at Miller Grove (Lithonia, Ga.), is the No. 21 player in the Class of 2012 and one of the most sought-after recruits in the nation, with UConn, Duke, UCLA, Ohio State, Georgetown, Memphis, Kentucky and Kansas all in the running for his services. He has agreed to chronicle the remainder of his final season and recruiting experiences leading up to his decision through a blog with ESPNHS.

Wassup.

Since my last blog, I have won another region championship -- the third I've won out of the four years in my career under head coach Sharman White. The game was extremely tough. Both teams really came to play. Southwest DeKalb played really hard and they have two big-time players in Auburn signee Jordan Price and Memphis signee Shaq Goodwin.

This time, with it being the region championship and SWD having lost the last two times we played, they came in with a huge chip on their shoulders and played like it. We came out with a chip also because SWD beat us the year before in the region championship. So both teams had a huge chip and felt like we had something to prove, and to me, both teams proved that SWD and MG are two of the best teams in Class 4A. And when we come to play, we are very hard to beat. SWD came out strong, but in the end we came out and finished strong so we were able to escape with a close win.

My Kansas visit

Kansas is a great school and they have produced very good post players. Right now they have a dominant big in Thomas Robinson, and a commitment from Brannen Greene, who is also from Georgia. Brannen and I are cool and he makes Kansas sound great. The Kansas game this weekend is where I might use my last official visit simply because that game will have one of the best -- if not the best -- atmospheres in college basketball. With Missouri being highly ranked and coming off a loss and Kansas still trying to prove themselves as a dominant team, I think it would be a showdown between two hungry teams.

On Hearing Negative Things About UCLA...

It really doesn’t affect my decision to go to UCLA. Everyone has a bad experience with every school on their list and how they don’t like the coach and what he does and does not do. ... You have to filter out the reasonable stories and the outrageous ones. It really won't faze me because I've been to UCLA and I know what it's about. It's like when everyone says Coach K is "stuck up," but I've met him and know him. I know what is true and what is not. That talk doesn't matter to me.